1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a land clearing or deforestation apparatus and, more particularly, to a deforestation apparatus driven by the power take-off of a tractor or skid steer vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
A number of techniques are known for land clearing including the use of explosives, mechanical force by, for example, bulldozer, and also by comminuting or grinding vegetation to ground level and preferably below. Land clearing machines, also referred to as deforestation devices, are used to clear land for such things as utility and pipe line right-of-way, fire lanes, construction and development sites, recreational sites and the like. Some prior art forestry shredders have a plurality of cutting elements mounted near the periphery of a horizontal drum. In response to the rotation of the drum, the cutters engage and cut through trees, shrubs and other woody forestry debris. The shredded material is discharged and left as mulch.
The implements used for cutting trees and grinding away tree stumps are often hydraulically powered and may be mounted on a support vehicle, such as a skid steer loader. In normal use a skid steer loader has a loader bucket pivotally attached to and spanning between front lift arms. The loader bucket is used to move and disburse dirt, rocks and debris. In land clearing operations, the loader bucket of the skid steer loader may be removed and an auxiliary or alternate implement such as a cutting device is attached in its place. Such implements are commonly powered by a hydraulic motor of the skid steer loader's hydraulic power system.
Many of these cutting implements are connected to a rear end of a work vehicle such as a tractor and are pulled over the land to be cleared. Hydraulic motors are typically used to drive cutting implements which perform the land clearing function. One problem with such hydraulically driven systems is that as the power source moves to idle speeds, torque output by the hydraulic motor and cutting device decreases which impacts cutting ability of the implement as well as the recovery speed thereof. Moreover, other devices which utilize direct connection between the engine and cutting implement can stall the engine when bound while cutting large logs and trees.